


on the way down screaming

by stillhumanz



Category: Gloomverse (Webcomic)
Genre: Harold's Emotions, aaah, ashsdhjfjfgdk, basically just, i wrote this at two am in half an hour blease dont judge me ahshdhfdfg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 21:26:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11193765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillhumanz/pseuds/stillhumanz
Summary: Harold doesn’t remember much of his childhood.Maybe it’s just that he’s triednotto remember, simply because he doesn’t want to, but the things that linger and justwon’t go awayare the emotions.





	on the way down screaming

**Author's Note:**

> here ya gooo, lazy unedited oneshot bc the recent pages got me eMOTIONAL, MAN  
> basically just Some Shit abt harold n wallis' relationship bc judging by earlier on in the comics, it Wasn't Very Good  
> (tho uh, a hc that i forgot to include is that sometimes harold would go to wallis' magic shows n shit in secreet)

Harold doesn’t remember much of his childhood.

 

Maybe it’s just that he’s tried _ not _ to remember, simply because he doesn’t want to, but the things that linger and just  _ won’t go away _ are the emotions.

 

At first, there’s a fuzzy kind of happiness, a whisper of a memory where him and Wallis are barely able to walk yet playing around the garden. Their mother sits, watching her children with a smile. They’re still young, then. 

 

Another; the dinner table, they’re a little older now. Everyone’s making idle chatter around the table, and their mother smiles again as Wallis says that he wants to become a world famous magician, one that’ll be known all over the world. It’s peaceful, and brings a bittersweet pang of guilt to Harold’s heart when he thinks of it.

 

The next one is a sight that had once been familiar to him- Wallis reciting the beginning to one of his magic shows, with or without the cardboard cut-out backgrounds, with or without the wand. With all of them, there’s _ content _ . All but one, of course.

 

It’s normal, at first; Wallis is doing another pretend magic show, their mother watching from the background with that same smile on her face, does a small trick or two with his newly-acquired wand. And this time, he tries something new. Curiosity, now.

 

Harold clutches his teddy bear close, eyes wide in awe as his brother waves around that wand of his, barely registers the shouts to stop from the distance, and-

 

Well, he doesn’t remember; there’s shock, confusion, anger-  _ guilt _ .

 

Shock because of the way the fuzzy image of his mother stares at him as if he’s alien, confusion because of the way he remembers his eyes widening as he looks down at his arm to find it simply  _ gone _ , anger when the two are attempting to talk to him, even if there’s no reason for it.

 

And guilt.

 

Guilt, as he and Wallis drift further apart between doctor’s visits and trips to far-off places. Guilt as the bedtime stories stop, the magic shows go out of business. Guilt because he wants so desperately to just  _ scream _ at his brother, ask him  _ where the hell they went wrong in all this _ , but he knows that won’t help.

 

As he gets older, the thought that some things just can’t be saved echoes in his mind between rejected efforts to just _ talk  _ to him, to try and fix this broken thing that eventually becomes their relationship.

 

Wallis moves out, gets a boyfriend or two, probably, and starts becoming _known_.

 

Here, there’s happiness, a little shock, but the anger returns because _Wallis never comes back for him_. Even when he knows that his younger brother hasn’t even gotten his magic well into his teens- probably never  _ will _ \- and has been lonely. Maybe it’s _because of_ the fact that he doesn’t have magic, still, or the fact that he’s scared to become close to people in fear of something like _ this _ happening again.

 

Time goes on.  _ Desperation  _ now, as he still doesn’t have his magic. 

 

He gets it at the age of seventeen. Noone needs to know how or why. Noone questions the sudden change in appearance, anyway. Not even Wallis or their mother, in the brief time they see eachother after that.

 

Because of course, there are the brief times where there’s nothing left to do  _ but _ go back to his brother; the winter nights where it’s too cold to stay out, and there’s some kind of understanding between them when Harold ends up occupying the guest room in Wallis’ house that always stays the same. He's back out again when it’s warm enough. They don’t talk to eachother when he visits. Those times are few and far between, anyway. Harold tries not to ask Wallis for anything if he can help it.

 

It goes on like that, for a long while.

 

Though, after a long while, everything changes- and it all begins with him meeting some nameless girl who's waiting to audition for Wallis..


End file.
